Dear Mia:

When I was your age, I too thought I will never get married, that it would be a miracle if I did. To my surprise I did get married and am.

You wrote that your childhood was okayish- I am glad you don’t see it as perfect, that would have been a greater distortion of reality. Okayish is still a distortion for a child witnessing her parents fighting a lot (“My parents fought a lot”).

You wrote that you were “a very sensitive child”-  here is one definition of sensitive: “quick to detect or respond to slight changes”- of course, a child becomes sensitive when witnessing lots of fighting. The home is a war zone.

You focus on your father’s lack of ability to love. My focus in your account is your mother confiding in you, as a child. I assume she confided in you that her husband, your father, didn’t love her? Telling you all the ways he doesn’t love her?

And so you are sensitive, quick to detect any signs in a man that he is not qualified to be in a relationship with you. Many men are not, but some are. Yet regarding the second group, seems to me, you have your mother’s voice in your head confiding in you about this man being unqualified. Am I correct?

anita